RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://www.frontpagemag.com/the-lefts-attacks-on-patriotism-and-the-constitution/

A few days before the murder of Charlie Kirk, I posted “The Dangerous Wages of Oikophobia”, a focus on the despicable mockery of patriotism, and the celebration of violence among the many leftist commentators’ gleeful joy over the nearly 3000 fellow citizens murdered on 9-11. One feature of oikophobia is the Left’s––whether progressive or “woke” ––hatred of patriots and the country they love, to the point of cheering on the sadistic murderers of their fellow Americans. The murder of Charlie Kirk has been celebrated with the same despicable oikophobia.

Patriots, in contrast, handle political conflicts, and disagree with fellow citizens by using the tools provided by the Constitution: the unalienable right of free speech, the laws and rules governing elections and legislation, and the general principles codified in the Constitution, most importantly the citizens’ political freedom and equality, without recourse to violence no matter how heated arguments may get.

Charlie Kirk was famous for following these patriotic protocols––seeking dialogue, attempting persuasion, and showing respect, while promoting acts of patriotism and support for the Constitution. Settling conflict through violence and murder is an act of treason against the Constitution and fellow Americans, and thus a threat to the freedom of all.

Since 9-11, such grotesque displays of mockery and unseemly pleasure over our fellow citizens’ suffering have increased the sadistic, juvenile pleasure in the death of a political enemy. With Charlie Kirk’s murder, they have been reined in a bit, but only because the plutocrats running the bosses of left-wing commentators and news-readers have had their fiscal wings clipped by terrible ratings and shrinking audiences. But the poison injected throughout the culture will not cease, no matter how many alleged journalists plumping for the left get fired. Their creed is the moral idiocy of “any means necessary.”

What has caused these moronic, sadistic displays by the intellectual punks created and churned out by our mediocre universities? How does the culture and its so-called adults indulge and applaud the cretins who are historical ignorant, and preen themselves by misusing words like “fascism,” as did the creep who murdered Kirk, and who should remain in the permanent damnatio memoriae reserved for ancient Rome’s worst enemies and traitors.

Let’s also add to him the legions of professors, entertainers, and low-rent politicians too lazy or stupid to make a coherent argument for, say, why they hate Donald Trump and instead shower him with question-begging epithets like “fascist,” “white supremacist,” “racist,” “autocrat,” and of course “Hitler,” the equivalent of the tantrum-throwing toddler’s “poopy-head” slur.

https://www.city-journal.org/article/annunciation-catholic-church-minneapolis-charlie-kirk-shooting-terrorism

In the 1960s and 1970s, America witnessed a wave of political terrorism. Left-wing radicals hijacked airplanes, set bombs in government buildings, and assassinated police officers in service of political goals. The perpetrators were almost always organized, belonging to groups like the Weathermen or the Black Liberation Army. These groups demanded the release of prisoners, denounced capitalism, or called for violent revolution against the United States. Their members were radical but largely lucid, justifying their actions with appeals to a higher cause.

In recent years, a new form of terror has emerged: decentralized, digitally driven violence organized not around coherent ideologies but around memes, fantasies, and nihilistic impulses. The perpetrators of this low-grade terror campaign do not belong to hierarchical organizations or pursue concrete political aims. More often, they come from ordinary families and lash out in acts of violence without discernible purpose.

At the close of this summer, two such incidents underscored the trend: the attack on schoolchildren at Annunciation Catholic Church in Minneapolis, Minnesota, and the assassination of Charlie Kirk in Orem, Utah. Though the first resembled the school-shooter archetype and the second evoked a JFK-style political assassination, both share psychological and sociological roots that make them more alike than they initially appear.

The new terror campaign is defined by a particular kind of psychopathology. It is perhaps tautological that anyone willing to kill innocent schoolchildren as they are praying or to assassinate a popular podcast host in broad daylight is pathological. But in these cases, both alleged killers—Robin Westman (formerly Robert Westman), and Tyler Robinson—left behind several warning signs that were psychological in nature.

https://www.city-journal.org/article/political-violence-left-charlie-kirk

In 2011, Martin McGuinness, the former leader of the Provisional IRA (Irish Republican Army), ran for president of the Republic of Ireland. Over the four decades of his public life, McGuinness had moved from supporting terrorism, including assassination, for political ends to pursuing votes through the ballot box. Some now feted him as a “peacemaker.” But to many voters, his personal journey from the use of violence to the use of democratic means to achieve a united Ireland still seemed like a work in progress.

During one televised presidential debate, the moderator for the Irish public broadcaster RTÉ, Miriam O’Callaghan, asked the candidate: “How do you square, Martin McGuinness, with your God, the fact that you were involved in the murder of so many people?” McGuinness called it a “disgraceful comment.” But the blow landed. Worse for McGuinness was that, after the cameras turned off, he took O’Callaghan into a side-room, where she was seen leaving five minutes later “badly shaken.” The Irish electorate did not take well to the news that a broadcaster and mother of young children had been treated in such a way. McGuinness’s run for the presidency failed.

The episode mattered because McGuinness still lived in the gray zone of political violence: not fully condoning it, but not fully condemning it, either—especially when it served his cause or came from his supporters. Some Americans have now entered this same gray zone. Parts of the U.S. Left have inhabited it for years.

Many commentators have pointed to the difference in responses between the killing of George Floyd and that of Charlie Kirk. Floyd’s death led to a summer of violence, burnings, and lootings, behavior often excused by Democratic lawmakers. Groups like Antifa shut down American cities night after night with minimal official condemnation in the summer of 2020. By contrast, Kirk’s death, so far, has led to dignified and mournful prayer meetings. If the American Right were ever to erupt into violence, then it would face its own moment of challenge.

Meantime, the American Left has the bigger questions to answer. In recent days, portions of the Left have expressed greater outrage about Jimmy Kimmel’s brief absence from his late-night talk show on ABC than Kirk’s absence from life. Others—up to and including members of Congress—have suggested that Kirk’s words constituted violence, and that therefore condemnations of the violence directed against him require a certain caveat. Such slips became possible only because the American Left has been increasingly drawn to the gray zone.

We have seen this tendency already in the Left’s response to Luigi Mangione, the 27-year-old accused of assassinating United HealthCare CEO Brian Thompson last December on Sixth Avenue in New York City. Many have noted the gushing support for Mangione from some on the left, or Senator Elizabeth Warren’s comment after the murder that “people can only be pushed so far”—as though gunning down a husband and father could ever be a logical extension of a critique of the American health-care system.

In response to recent criticism of their rhetoric, some on the left have pointed to frivolous right-wing reactions to the 2022 hammer attack on Nancy Pelosi’s husband in San Francisco. But such tit-for-tat arguments miss the larger point. The issue is not whether both sides can produce individuals willing to commit political violence—that much is undeniable. The real question is whether those individuals will find a supportive ecosystem or, instead, encounter a firm “no,” like the one the Irish electorate eventually delivered to McGuinness.

https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2025/09/lawmakers_should_endure_the_consequences_of_their_policies.html

Those who wish to disarm us shouldn’t have armed guards.

Sundance over at The Conservative Treehouse brought to my attention an effort by some House Republicans to increase private security for members of Congress.  The Treehouse links to an article from Politico that describes one budgeting option that would grant as much as $25,000 each month to individual lawmakers so that they may “have access to around-the-clock personal security.”  These security guarantees would be in addition to current levels of federal spending for lawmakers’ safety — including those funds that assist Capitol Police in partnering with state and local law enforcement.

Over a haunting still image that shows defenseless Ukrainian immigrant Iryna Zarutska sitting on a North Carolina train just before a black man brutally stabbed her from behind and murdered her last month, Sundance poses this question: “What incentive exists to make sure American society is safe from domestic regional violence, if the representatives of the regions don’t ever have to concern themselves with such matters?”

It is an excellent question.  It is astounding to me that Democrats (and squishy RINOs) can get up in front of television cameras and demand gun confiscation while insisting on taxpayer-funded security details for themselves.  Ordinary people can’t afford private security.  That’s precisely why they have a natural right to defend their lives in the best ways that they can — and why the Second Amendment explicitly protects that right in the Constitution.  Lawmakers who walk around with armed guards have no business disarming citizens.  

Before Nancy Pelosi, Hakeem Jeffries, or Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez moans, “It’s different because members of Congress are public figures,” allow me to say, “Hogwash!”  Most Americans can’t identify federal lawmakers.  Even the more famous ones look completely different in real life without an inch of makeup on their faces.  But try walking down certain city streets with a red “Make America Great Again” hat for everyone to see!  Or try waving an American flag in neighborhoods filled with foreigners who view that flag with contempt!  

Regular Americans understand that they are sitting ducks in some parts of the United States.  If Kyle Rittenhouse had been unarmed amid the Antifa-BLM riots in Kenosha, Wisconsin five years ago, he would not be alive today.  Because of his heroic actions, Democrat politicians have painted a target on Kyle’s back for the rest of his life.  Why should members of Congress receive thousands of dollars of taxpayer-funded security each month when Kyle does not?

This brings us to a larger point.  Why should members of Congress be insulated from the consequences of their destructive policies?